As my title says, what becomes of the character creation tools and whatnot when 5E hits the market? I'm sure a 5E character generation system will take its place, will all the 4E players be left hanging, or will they release the program as a free download so we can continue to use it to create characters after 4E is dead?

based on how wizards has operated ddi over the years, they will likely just abruptly announce they are shutting them down, possibly only through a broadcast. a few years later, they will do the exact same thing for 6e.

It will probably come down to money. If the 4e tools continue to make money (or more specifically, ENOUGH money) to warrant keeping them up, they probably will. If too many people cancel their subs, they'll probably let it die.

On the other hand, they may simply choose to let it die to 'encourage' people to transfer to 5e.

If the 4e tools continue to make money (or more specifically, ENOUGH money) to warrant keeping them up, they probably will.

I am hoping for this.

On the other hand, they may simply choose to let it die to 'encourage' people to transfer to 5e.

But I am assuming this.

Here are the PHB essentia, in my opinion:

Three Basic Rules (p 11)

Power Types and Usage (p 54)

Skills (p178-179)

Feats (p 192)

Rest and Recovery (p 263)

All of Chapter 9 [Combat] (p 264-295)

A player needs to read the sections for building his or her character -- race, class, powers, feats, equipment, etc. But those are PC-specific. The above list is for everyone, regardless of the race or class or build or concept they are playing.

I think Salla is probably right. Unfortunately, I also think a lot of people are going to do what Runfer_Cover has said he's doing. The longer WotC refuses to give a straight answer about this, the more people are going to turn off their auto-renew and let their subs expire, which is going to make WotC more likely to ditch the 4e tools as they'll be making less money from them.

Personally, I'm going to keep my annual sub going for as long as the tools are there. If they pull them, I'll ask to be reimbursed for any time remaining on my current subscription.

I've no interest in 5e at this point. 4e will almost certainly be my last edition of D&D. It's entirely up to WotC whether they want to continue taking my money.

I think Salla is probably right. Unfortunately, I also think a lot of people are going to do what Runfer_Cover has said he's doing. The longer WotC refuses to give a straight answer about this, the more people are going to turn off their auto-renew and let their subs expire, which is going to make WotC more likely to ditch the 4e tools as they'll be making less money from them.

It is a self-fulling prophecy. WotC is no longer going to support 4e and then sales for new (what is left to release?) material becomes stagant, they will cry that people no longer want the old edition.

Personally, I have found 4e to be one of my favorite systems. Right there with Savage Worlds and Dynamic Gaming System.

I think Salla is probably right. Unfortunately, I also think a lot of people are going to do what Runfer_Cover has said he's doing. The longer WotC refuses to give a straight answer about this, the more people are going to turn off their auto-renew and let their subs expire, which is going to make WotC more likely to ditch the 4e tools as they'll be making less money from them.

It is a self-fulling prophecy. WotC is no longer going to support 4e and then sales for new (what is left to release?) material becomes stagant, they will cry that people no longer want the old edition.

Personally, I have found 4e to be one of my favorite systems. Right there with Savage Worlds and Dynamic Gaming System.

The book with kobolds and goblins seems to be the last of actual 4e mechanics. The drow one and the faerun one seem to be edition neutral.

I think Salla is probably right. Unfortunately, I also think a lot of people are going to do what Runfer_Cover has said he's doing. The longer WotC refuses to give a straight answer about this, the more people are going to turn off their auto-renew and let their subs expire, which is going to make WotC more likely to ditch the 4e tools as they'll be making less money from them.

They will shut down the character builder and compendium to force people over to DnD Next, which will prove to be a challenge for all of us 4e guys out there. I like 4th, but it really benefits from the CB and Compendium (even in Silverlight). They did shut down all homemade programs that could make use of the compendium, changed it for basic queries only, removed all documentation, then changed all the IDs on the compendium so that even links won't work any more.

I really don't see them continuing the tools for 4e people - if you take a look at the articles on the site, it is pretty obvious that they moved on. (I think all 4e podcasts combined since its existance doesn't sum up to the amount of Next podcasts - Penny Arcade aside)

At the moment it seems to me (personal opinion) WotC is the new RPG Games Workshop - they give you some shinies (Dungeon Command and Miniatures), hype it for some years - bring a new edition to make you buy everything all over again.

But I don't blame them - I blame myself for buying all the 4e books out there

Well this is it for me, I won't buy their 5E stuff. I will probably dump all my 4E off as well and go back to playing my 1E AD&D originals I still have and do play. I'm not investing in another big pile of books just to be crapped on again because they want to compete with Paizo and try and draw the Pathfinder crowd back to D&D, which isn't going to happen because the Pathfinder players feel burned by WoTC from 3.5E being dumped so they latched onto Paizo's Pathfinder game and it makes them happy, now WoTC is going to do the same BS again but to their loyal 4E crowd and crap on them, this time they may loose the whole damn thing and not have a bloody soul to sell 5E too, at least I am one of the ones who will be gone, that's for damn sure.

Well this is it for me, I won't buy their 5E stuff. I will probably dump all my 4E off as well and go back to playing my 1E AD&D originals I still have and do play. I'm not investing in another big pile of books just to be crapped on again because they want to compete with Paizo and try and draw the Pathfinder crowd back to D&D, which isn't going to happen because the Pathfinder players feel burned by WoTC from 3.5E being dumped so they latched onto Paizo's Pathfinder game and it makes them happy, now WoTC is going to do the same BS again but to their loyal 4E crowd and crap on them, this time they may loose the whole damn thing and not have a bloody soul to sell 5E too, at least I am one of the ones who will be gone, that's for damn sure.

You can count me as one of the 4E players who feels crapped on that's turning to Pathfinder.

Maybe if we complain enough, they'll do what George Lucas did and say "You guys don't like anything new I do anyway, so I'm selling it all to Disney!"

Seriously, though, they've built up 4e to be so much easier with the online character builder and compendium, that it'll become very difficult to play if we have to go back to just books (esp with all the errata & online Dragon content).

If D&D Encounters is any indicator, though, they're already pushing 4e players to experience the D&DNext "feel" in 4e, removing most challenge in the combats, removing random magic items, and forcing people away from the idea that levelling a character matters in any way.

By that metric, plus evidence from the edition-neutral books, plus the overwhelming number of articles about nothing other than NEXT, it's not looking good for those of us who enjoy 4th ed and want to keep using the tools that have helped to make it awesome. Alas...

At the moment it seems to me (personal opinion) WotC is the new RPG Games Workshop - they give you some shinies (Dungeon Command and Miniatures), hype it for some years - bring a new edition to make you buy everything all over again.

^This.

I stopped buying GW merchandise when I worked that out and now 4E for me is D&DLast. I have bought some books lately but only because a couple of local stores have been dumping them really cheap. I haven't used DDI for a couple of years because I cleverly (luckily) retained a copy of the offline CB and Adventure Tools. (I am going to virtualise this PC build so that it can be permanently ported from PC to PC) The lack of updates to the offline builder has actually stopped me buying any book that was released after that date, such as Dark Sun, as character gen is too complex in 4e without it and I refuse to pay a monthly subscription for information that I have already bought (and, as a side effect, to be a slave to their whims when they decide to trash the edition(again))

To me the whole model for the tools was broken from the start but especially when they went online. If it were me, i would have released the offline characer builder with the PHB/DMG and a license key or something similar in each book, printed adventure, etc that could have been used to download the data for 1 pc. That would have encouraged people to buy books. Content from Dungeon and Dragon magazines could have been added by subsciption to DDI and then customer could choose to pay extra for this content if they thought it worthwhile. To be honest, I mostly don't want the data from books and magazines that I don't own because I don't own it for a reason and it just clogs up the interface (or has to be managed out).

As a comparison another RPG company that I recently bought from GIVE you a free PDF copy of the source book when you buy the hardcopy; WotC tries to charge you monthly for the information and then takes away your access to it.

It would be nice if in the interest of good faith WotC issued a data file for the offline character builder and adventure tools with all of the updates for 4E if they are not going to support them ongoing ... or maybe sell the IP to one of the 3rd parties that make such software.

Of course they haven't officially responded as yet so who knows what could happen but evidence is not in their favour so far.

I hope all of the unhomed on this thread find a more loyal brand to give their money!